


Dead Ivy

by UnholyHelbig



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2019-11-09 00:19:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17991302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnholyHelbig/pseuds/UnholyHelbig
Summary: When Beca Mitchell returns back to her home town for her brothers funeral, she comes face to face with a past that she was begging to forget, including a girl that carved her name into the big oak tree that stretches across her backyard.





	1. Chapter 1

**Beca could feel** the soil beneath her fingertips. It was soft, freshly overturned, and in a way, comforting. She was careful not to let her knees touch the ground- not privy to the dark stains that would splay against the fabric. The tree stood tall above her, stretching its large oak branches towards the pluming blue sky. A nice summer breeze tussled her hair, and she was sure that if she breathed in, she would smell freshly cut grass and chlorine from the neighbor’s pool.

The treehouse had long since been torn down to make room for her mother’s garden. Something that stood at the end of the fenced in yard. For a while, she grew tomatoes and zucchini. Beca could still remember the first red bulb that poked its head from the dirt. They made a salad from store-bought spinach and divided up the little thing, no bigger than a golf ball. It was still the best tomato that Beca had ever had.

She sighed at the hand that squeezed her shoulder gently. Her father smelled of aftershave and bourbon. His tie wasn’t fastened all the way to his white button down, and he had strung his suit jacket over his arm. He held a sad look that was shielded by the sun as Beca squinted at him. She pulled herself to her feet, feeling the age of her aching bones as she stepped back from the large oak tree and stared up at the branches.

“Do you remember when I fell out of this tree and broke my arm?” She asked.

Her fathers’ eyes crinkled at the memory as he gave her a sad smile. She had needed him to run beside her when he first took the training wheels off her bike. She had needed him when she learned how to drive and took out the Johnson’s mailbox. But when she dropped from a higher spot in the oak tree and felt something audibly snap, it was her mother that came to the rescue.

She had been clipping up sheets to the clothesline, claiming that the summer air was always better for stuff like that. A beautiful woman that would beam endlessly and cradle Beca in her arms with her stormy eyes and eerie calm. Beca needed that right now. Needed it to get through the handshakes and the hugs. The baked goods and casseroles that people deemed necessary when something like this happened.

“I do.” He chuckled wearily, “I got a call at work that something had happened. You scared the hell out of me that day, kid.”

Beca snorted at the nickname. She and her father had gotten along significantly better since she moved out on her own- took up a place and a prominent career across the country in Los Angeles of all places. She had, of course, taken time off work to come back for the funeral. To pull into the sleepy little Georgia town with a giant oak tree that shook in the summer breeze. She squinted at the bark, at the carving so crudely made by a grooved pocket knife.

_C + B FOREVER & EVER _

The second half was etched in different handwriting, something more elegant and thought out. It was funny, really. When they were kids, it was easier to think about the future in terms of relationships. Of course, they would always be with one another- they wouldn’t fathom being apart. But then college. Careers. Plane rides. Marriage, kids, and divorces. All inevitable. All anything but forever.

“She still lives around here, you know? Owns a little café in the far side of town.”

“That so?”

He grunted and sniffed away any feeling that still leaked in his voice. No one would question them for standing out here- but they still felt obligated to go back inside the old farm style house with the wrap around porch and the honeysuckle bushes. Beca didn’t know how he could still live here. “Yeah. You should pay her a visit while you’re here. I bet she’d like that.”

Beca simply nodded and let the tips of her fingers trace of the words that had been weathered over time, but they were still there. They had stood the test of time, unlike her treehouse. Unlike the little plants of tomatoes and zucchini that had rotted away to decaying vines that stretched like deadened ivy up the side of the fence.

“Right. Well, we should probably go back inside. The quicker we talk to everyone, the quicker they can go home and mourn their memories.”

It was a grim thing to say, but it was the truth, so her father let the words die in the air before sliding on the suit jacket to cover up the sweat stains against his dress shirt. She let her hand fall and looped it around his arm like he was escorting her down the carpeted floor of a chapel on her wedding day. Instead of white, she dawned black, though. And so, did he.

 **She thought that** drinking and sadness walked hand and hand. It was why the only two bars in town did so well on any given night, and if things were bad, any given day. The other place, the snake eye, had karaoke on Friday nights and Beca didn’t think she was well equipped to listen to TLC, so she chose The Red Sun instead.

There were repurposed Christmas lights strung against the bottom of the counter, hot to the touch. A low rock ballad cracked over the loudspeaker. She wasn’t sure if the jukebox that changed light settings every few beats actually had a purpose or if it just ate up quarters. Either way, Beca Mitchell was in her own world.

She tilted her head back and let the bourbon burn on the way down. A nice and subtle sting that washed the taste of stale crackers out of her mouth. It was the only thing in her stomach- despite the spread that was now packed with tin foil in the fridge. Her father was drinking too, she was sure, at home in his study. The house was too quiet for her, though.

Beca felt a twinge of guilt in her gut.

She had ignored the last call from her brother. She was in the middle of the meeting, and at the time, the buzzing of her phone sounded louder than anything else in the world. She flushed instantly and clicked the side of the device before staring back down at her notes and sunk further into her seat.

He had died the next day, she had forgotten to call him back. A car accident and a drunk driver. Which, she supposed, defeated the purpose of being here- in this stupid some-hazy bar with nothing but time on her hands. She considered switching her flight to something earlier. But then reconsidered as quickly as the thought entered her mind. Her father needed her, at least for now.

“Beca Mitchell?” The voice startled her, it broke through the garbled focus of the next song. She blinked a few times and turned her head to the side. Stacie Conrad. She looked older, wiser even, but maybe that was the glasses. The smile on her face aged her, but in the best way. Still impossibly attractive, and confident, it seems. “Is that really you?”

“As I live and breathe.”

She winced at her use of words, but Stacie didn’t seem to notice as she quickly wrapped her in an awkward hug, Beca still half-sitting on a bar stool. Still, she craved the embrace and hugged back naturally.   

“God, how are you?” She pulled away, “That’s a stupid question… I mean, as well as you can be, I hope.”

Before Beca could answer she lifted her hand in the air and signaled the bartender, the woman busied herself with preparing Stacie’s usual and pouring another sour edge of bourbon into Beca’s glass. She wasn’t sure if she would drink it or not, but she appreciated the sentiment behind it. Stacie settled into the seat next to her.

“I’m doing fine,” She finally managed, earning a detrimental look. “As well as I can be.”

The bartender set two glasses in front of them and Beca wrinkled her nose at it before focusing her attention on Stacie, the way her own drink looked like radioactive fluid. It was always the fruity things that packed the most punch. Not the gritty glass that she would be nursing for the rest of their conversation.

“I’m sorry to hear about him, you know.” Stacie finally said after a beat of silence.

Beca simply nodded. She was numb to the situation at this point. Her whole body felt like a lead pipe. She and Jason didn’t get along too well. He traveled the world and she resented him for that. But they played nice during the holidays and smiled for family pictures. He got divorced young, married even younger. It still ached her whole entire being.

“You and most of the town,” Beca chuckled dryly, begging for a change of subject. “I haven’t seen you in what? Eleven years?”

“Twelve. God, we’re old.”

She was thankful that her high school friend could take a keenly dropped hint. The two of them encircled the same click during those years. It was better than giving in to the southern tenacity of it all. They would smoke behind the bleachers and drink if they were feeling lucky. They usually were.

Beca caught a glimpse at the wedding band that took over Stacie’s finger. It was simple, not overstated with large diamonds. A simple one that was surrounded by two smaller stones. She smiled “You’re married now?”

She took another gulp of her fruity drink and hummed in response, instinctively twirling it around her ring finger. She got a goofy grin on her face and twirled slightly to make eye contact with Beca. Sure, she had seen the social media posts. The cute announcements and the picturesque scenes.

“Happily, at that, we invited you to the wedding, you know?”

“I know, I know. And I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.”

“S’alright,” Stacie said with a beaming smile “Rose loves the panini press.”

Beca scoffed and picked up her glass, chancing a sip of the molten liquid. It hissed as she swallowed, and she blinked away the residual prick of pain that collected behind her eyes. Stacie glanced behind her at the group of girls that she had come in with- doctors like her, she supposed. They all had that tired professional look that the woman beside her carried.

“Listen, uh, how long are you in town? I’d love a chance to catch up in a setting with better lighting.”

“A couple of weeks, at most. We have to settle his estate.” She grimaced at the technical term. “I’ll be around.”

“We’ll catch up, promise?”

She gave Beca a squeeze on her shoulder and a sympathetic smile, but she didn’t say it again and Beca was thankful for that. She watched as Stacie went to the four other colleges that were in her inner circle. They all asked questions and cast wary looks her way- she lifted the glass and gave a smile before turning back to the bartender. She was cleaning out a glass and eyeing her.

“Promise,” Beca mumbled, tipping her head back the rest of the way, finishing the glass of bourbon she hadn’t even ordered.    


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so this is going to be kind of sad. Also, guys, I move to Wyoming in a month and a half and holy shit.

**The room was** taken over with a brutal heat. The type of Georgia heat that would cling to every inch of her skin and worm past her clothes. When Beca was younger she would sleep with the window propped open, spread out over the quilt that her grandmother had sewn before she was born. That was folded up in the closet now, and a busted window unit struggled to pull outside warmth into cooler currents. It smelled like gas.

She felt the sticky brine of sweat on every inch of her skin, almost like a casing that she needed to shed. Her whole body was sore with the whispers of a hangover, though she had only downed two drinks before cautiously walking the side streets and leaving her fathers pickup truck in the parking lot of the Red Sun.

Beca didn’t’ bother reaching for her phone, scrolling through the multitude of emails that she could just mute, justifying it with an excuse. Her bosses could wait, hell, she could wait. Nothing was more important than sitting in her old room staring at the walled posters of boy bands that were shrouded in repression of sexuality. She squinted her eyes at Justin Timberlake and let out a soft groan. She was back where she started.  

The scent of coffee tickled at her nose as birds chirped outside. In any other situation, this would be a picturesque moment. But instead, she was thrust into her home town for a funeral. Her brother’s funeral. It left a strange ache in the pit of her chest that she frowned at as she pulled herself from the quilt that her grandmother passed down to her mom- and now it lay here, spread across her twin bed.  

Her father was sitting at the kitchen table when she wandered onto the cooling tile. She shivered as the surface bit at her bare feet. He wordlessly nodded at her as she fished for a mug and filled it with steaming liquid. The heat warmed her cheeks as she leaned against the counter.

“You don’t want any milk or sugar?”

“No, I’m okay. Thank you.”

He had run out of things to say after they walked back into the funeral yesterday. They both smiled sadly and accepted the handshakes, cleaning up in silence. The fridge was wracked with different Tupperware they weren’t expected to give back. Most of the dishes were covered in cheese, something about comfort, she supposed. Now there was an uncomfortable silence between them. Beca decided to read over the label stitched into his button-down instead. _Mitchell Transmission._

“What are your plans for today?”

She lifted her eyes over the rim of her mug, mumbling into it. “I was going to go to the house.”

He sat back in his chair and let it groan, drumming his fingers on the table. None of this felt real. Was she actually going to use the key that was under the front mat and open into the place that sat desolate now? There was probably mail stacked in the box, no one aware that there wasn’t anyone to open them. But that was why she was staying so long, wasn’t it? To tie up loose ends. To get the old ranch ready to sell.

“Fine, that’s fine. Are you going to get rid of any of his stuff?”

“I’m not sure.” She set the mug down on the counter and let out a small breath. 

Part of Beca knew she said it to ease his mind. What about his baseball card collecting? He would murder her if she even thought about touching that as a kid. They were encased in plastic, some of them marked with signatures. But now they were nothing. She would have to get rid of nearly everything, not willing to take it back to her apartment out west, and her father had no reason for it either.

“Well, I’m off.” He stood from the table and pushed in the chair with a shattering screech. It drowned out the birds that chirped outside. She nodded and he told her to drive safely. Something he had never done before.  

 **Beca went to** the only general store in town to get trash bags. She had internally groaned when she peeled open the bottom cabinet in the kitchen to find that the only cleaning supplies her father kept was a dried-out pack of Clorox wipes that didn’t smell like lemon anymore. If it were up to her, and really, it wasn’t, she would avoid all public places like this. Especially with lighting so harsh.

She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket and struggled to keep her head down as she walked through the sliding doors closest to the produce. An instant smell crossed her senses: A mix between freshly baked bread and cut fruit. There was a slight chill to the air as she grasped a small basket and balanced it in her fingertips. She hoped it was early enough that the only people in here would be moms with nothing better to do, and maybe a drunk college student that hadn’t had a chance to sleep off a hangover.

Beca rounded the aisle to the cleaning supplies and welcomed the bout of heat as she got further away from the freezer section. Maybe Los Angeles had made her soft to the cold. She threw some off-brand trash bags into the basket, some wipes that were also generic, but had some moisture to them. Paper towels, a pack of plastic gloves, though she doubted that she would need them. That’s when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye.

The woman straightened up and flicked her stare to the base of the aisle. And that’s where she stood: her focus on a pack of detergent that she was glaring at under the fluorescents. She was impossible to miss, her fire-filled hair was done up in a messy bun, a t-shirt hugging every inch of her curves. She had tied a flannel around her waist, taking it off due to heat, Beca guessed.

Chloe Beale. Restaurant owner. Single mother- and oh god _, staring right at her._  

Beca’s cheeks flushed instantly at the blue flash of light she saw before staring down at the product that was in her hand. She read the directions on how to put on gloves like she had never done it before. It was the most interesting thing in the world right now. She got all the way down to the warning label about ingesting the powder before she felt the warmth of another, always silent on her feet.

“Beca? I heard you were back in town.”

 _Fuck, that voice._ It made her knees want to buckle. She was thankful they didn’t- instead, she calmly breathed in and looked up. She was so close, and her eyes, damn, her eyes were a breath-taking blue like they had always been. Her smile was strong, encouraging. She had missed it.

“Yeah, I… how are you?”

She mentally cursed herself. How are you? _Yeah, I’m sorry that I bolted right after high school. That I broke up with you the second I had a chance to get out of the little town. Literally anything but ‘how are you’ would work._ But instead, she stared and rocked back on the heels of her boots. Chloe had a cloying, yet graceful, smile on her lips. Obliged.

“I’m well, Beca. How are you?”

Beca blinked: Chloe either hadn’t heard or hadn’t the heart to mention it. Even the greeter at the front of the store had given her a sad look and that awful head tilt. This place was too small for no one to forbid pitying her. She hated it- but Chloe hadn’t done any of that stuff. Instead, she treated her like an old friend. 

“I’m uh, I’m okay.” She cupped the back of her neck and peered up at the woman. She had a few things in her hands. A large pack of iodized salt with a little woman in a raincoat stood out to her. It was raining and a spinning sunny umbrella rested upon her shoulder. “Listen, I’m sorry that I’ve been MIA.”

Chloe lifted a brow at that. MIA would be a casual phrase one would use when it came to dodging texts for a few days, not moving across the country and successfully producing records for the past twelve years without so much as a friendly acknowledgment.

“It’s alright.” She finally worked out. “I know how much you wanted to escape this sleepy little town. And you did quite well for yourself.”

Chloe smiled at her again and ducked around her as Beca let her shoulders drop. There was hurt in her stance, eyes following the red-headed woman for a few moments before she vanished, walking up to a cashier who beamed right back at her.   


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so this is actually a lot more angst than I am used to writing, so I hope you guys like it.

**The house never** looked that big before, it was a small two bedroom that was enough for Jason and his wife. He had repainted the gray finish into a pearly white that matched the picket fence. He had replaced the grass and drew little designs on the mailbox to make it look more like home- but now the grass was rotting to a deep brown, and the mailbox’s flag creaked as sticky wind hissed past.

Beca knew she should have grabbed the keys before she got out of her fathers’ truck.

That would have saved her from digging in her messenger bag. There were a lot of papers from the funeral in there, different documents and legal stuff that she would usually pay people to do that for her- which, of course, left a sour taste in her mouth. She hated people like that, but she hated not reading the fine print even more.

They had given her Jason’s things in a plastic bag that reminded her of prison. Beca just remembered staring at the doctor, dry-mouthed and silent against the buzzing fluorescent lights. How could her brother not survive but the set of keys in the ignition were salvaged? It left a thick feeling in her veins.

There was a CD that wasn’t labeled, something they had pulled from the wreckage. A couple of receipts and a picture of his ex-wife that he had, still clipped to the visor. Her father refused to take any of it, so she shoved everything except for the keys into the bottom compartment of her dresser. Of course, now, she couldn’t’ find them.

“Whatever you’re selling, he doesn’t want it.”

The voice startled her into gasping. If she was holding keys, Beca would let them fall to the ground. She had placed the cleaning supplies down by the front door and turned slightly within the bounds of the picket fence. A woman, probably three times her age, was leaning with her garden sheers, way too close to the barrier. She had on a large floppy hat the shaded her ghostly eyes and her pants were coated in grass stains.

“I’m sorry?”

“The young man that lives there, he doesn’t want what you’re selling. We have a strict policy against solicitors, and you can see that there is no car other than yours in the driveway.”

Beca blinked a few times at the woman. She didn’t’ think people like this actually existed. When she was growing up her father would get letters in the mail from the HOA talking about how they needed to trim their hedges or repaint their shutters or else they would get fined for tainting the neighborhood. She never understood people who looked out for that type of thing, but one was standing right in front of her, mouth pressed into a hard line.

“I’m not selling anything.” Beca felt the need to defend herself to this small-town southern belle of the ’50s. “I’m looking for the key.”

She went back to pawing around her back, shoving aside a half-eaten granola bar that was at the bottom. It left crumbs over everything and made it smell like peanut butter, but she supposed there were worse things. 

“This place has been vacant for a week now.” 

“He’s dead.”

Beca paused in her own movements. She hadn’t said it out loud. She had mulled over it again and again. Her older brother, the kid who used to pick on her about her hair, and her grades, and the fact that she couldn’t pass her driving test on the first try was dead. She had been preoccupied. Busy with arranging his service and keeping up house for the rest of the town. She finally found the key and looked up at the woman, who was quiet for what seemed like the first time in her life.

“He was so young. That’s tragic.”

“It is,” Beca let out a deep sigh and turned the key in the lock. She nodded briskly at the woman before pushing her way into the stifling heat of the house. She was hit with an instant scent of rotted food and stagnant water. The electric had been cut. It left her with the dusty darkness of a bachelor pad.

The house groaned in her presence and she drew in a cloying breath, pressing her back against the door. There were envelopes on the floor, scattered against the hardwood after being shoved through the mail slot. An instant brine of sweat began to adhere her clothes to her skin. Her brother's house looked normal.

Jason’s coat was still hanging on the hook by the front door. There were movies lining the shelves next to a vacant television. A throw moved against the back of the sofa and another picture of his wife was situated by the end table. Beca never understood why he left that there. But then again, she had never been over here to turn the smiling face to the mahogany that it rested on.

She let her boots echo against the flooring as she wondered through everything. There were two bedrooms, one converted into an office, the other had an unmade bed. The dining room was void of a table instead a worn Steinway piano was in its place. She ran her fingers over dusty cover but decided against listening to the notes.

They were both forced to take piano lessons as a kid. Jason wanted to go out for the basketball team instead, and he eventually did. But for three long years in middle school, they both sat with their backs straight and fingers hovering over alternating keys. Beca supposed she did have her father to thank for her affinity in music. Her understanding was owed to Miss Beale.

Beca walked over the fridge and frowned. That same rotted scent of decaying vegetation coated her lungs and she knew she would have to peel open a trash bag and get rid of the food first. It should have been done days ago- all of this had. Instead, she stared at the fridge.

There were letter magnets that were blocky and in primary colors. There didn’t seem to be any combinations that could be read, but they did hold up different poloids. Easter, 07’. Key West, 04’. Honeymoon, ll’. The one that stood out to her was Christmas of 01. Jason was behind Beca, his cheesy smile matching the onesies they both wore in front of a tree too covered in tinsel to ever be considered pine. She leaned into him and they both grinned like they were instructed to.  

Beca jumped when her phone buzzed in her back pocket.

She gulped back the rancid air and blinked away whatever moisture formed in her eyes before frantically fishing her phone out of her back pocket. She didn’t recognize the number, but she welcomed the distraction. “Mitchell.”

“It’s Stacie, I’m so glad I had the right number.” Beca didn’t ask her why, or how, she had gotten it before Stacie spoke again. “Listen, I was serious about getting together. You busy?”

Beca glanced around and brought her fingers up to her collarbone. She instinctively scratched at where a necklace had once been. A nervous habit, she supposed. “No, not at all. What did you have in mind?”

 **Beca Mitchell ended** up at the Snake Eye, the very place she didn’t want to find herself in while staying in the sleepy little town. The music was too loud, and there was an undeniable thickness to the air that culminated in half-rate nachos and open mic nights. High school Beca would have loved this place- hell, college graduate Beca would have loved it too.

“I got you a beer!” Stacie called over the music, shoving a cold amber bottle into Beca’s hand. “I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s perfect, thanks!”

Beca would have taken rubbing alcohol at this point. Anything that would drown out, or at least dull, the sound of the pulsing music. Every seat was taken at the bar, and the few tables that the place had were occupied. Some college girl was mumbling her way through Bohemian Rhapsody, probably on a dare from her friends sitting a few booths down.

Stacie pulled Beca into a vacant corner of the bar. It was oddly quieter on the plush leather seats. She set her beer down on the table and tried to distract herself by reading whatever was on the menu. It was tailgating food and all of it was a greasy mess, yet, Beca found herself craving jalapeno poppers.

“Sorry, this is such short notice. All my residents ended up coming down with the same flu that they were treating last week.” Stacie took a long gulp of her fruity drink. “I feel bad, but I’ve got the night off, and you probably need an escape.”

“I do, yeah, though, I refuse to get up on that stage.”

“What? The singing bug finally left your bones?”

Beca snorted and shook her head. She wasn’t much of a singer, to begin with, sure, she had a voice. Almost everyone from her childhood did. She remembered the after-school jazz band and the concerts that the school would put on.  “I’m more a behind the scenes type of girl.”

“Right, right. Bigshot producer now, I bet a few of your songs are in that book up there.”

Her cheeks heated at that, but she knew the doctor meant well. She was sure there were a few that she had helped produce. Big pop songs that let her top the charts without giving her the fame. Of course, she still found herself pulling her baseball cap down, or looking away from whatever cameras had spotted her. Not here, though. No one knew this place existed.

“That’s pretty cool, Mitchell. Getting out of this place and making a name for yourself.”

“Please, you are literally a doctor. You save lives daily.” Beca took a swig of her own beer, letting the sour liquid sooth her nerves a bit. “That’s dope, dude.”

“Not always. I pull more marbles out of asses than I do bullets.”

Beca frowned at the statement, scrunching up her nose before the two of them burst into laughter. If felt like it used to: she could remember sitting in the refinished garage that Stacie had converted into somewhat of a man cave. There was a fold out couch, and the hum of the dryer would lull them into placid conversation. Stacie stole a beer from her father, and they drank it in there. Two years later she produced a sloppily rolled blunt, and they smoked it there, all while making crass jokes and cracking up. It felt normal.

They both let out an involuntary groan as the first three notes of a Toni Braxton song filled the bar. Beca pressed her forehead against the table and Stacie shifted in the booth to get a good look at whoever had chosen a ballad like Unbreak My Heart.

“No fucking way,” Stacie mumbled, setting her sloshing drink down. “Mitchell, you wouldn’t believe…”

Though, when the first ballad started, Beca did believe. She had heard that voice a million times and had more than enough nights where she fought to forget it. Right now, it was shockingly crushing one of the hardest songs humanly possible to sing- though she had no doubt.

Chloe Beale. Restaurant owner. Single mother- and oh god _, wearing really tight jeans._

There weren’t many lights that illuminated the half-baked stage in the karaoke bar. But that didn’t’ seem to matter. A mix of blue and white shaded Chloe while the whole place seemed captivated by the words of a heartfelt breakup song. Ouch.

“She’s crushing it.”

“Mm,” Beca could only hum in agreement as she traced Chloe’s body. Of course, a deep acid still burned against her veins from their curt interaction earlier that morning. She looked so different- so freeing with the mic in her hand and all eyes on her. “I think I need some air.”

Before Stacie could interject Beca pushed herself away from the booth and walked through the crowd that had all turned to face the stage. She didn’t blame them. Her whole body was on fire, like the atoms that made up her God complex were struggling to pull her back. She didn’t know if the hot Georgia air was doing her any favors, but it muted the song.

She let out a dull sigh and pressed her body close to the brick, closing her eyes. She could hear the crickets mix with the low croaks of bullfrogs. She used to find it odd when both were quiet. When she could only hear her breath- but she was used to LA traffic, a different type of loud and never that unsettling silence.

The music picked up again when the door opened and closed. A couple that was sure to move on to their next destination for the night. Stacie coming out to check on her. A bartender coming out for a smoke while they sat on an old plastic carton.

Beca let her eyes shoot open once more when the warmth of another cut through her focus. She steadied herself, hands grasping at her arms. Familiar. “Oh my god, I am so sorry, I-“Chloe Beale wasn’t alone, her breath scarce. She was still riding the high of the stage. “Beca.”

The girl that was with her was tall, towering with those brown doe eyes that could melt the sharpest hearts encased in ice. She wore a floral sundress, loud colors that somehow worked on her lanky frame. A leather coat was against her shoulders to counter the cold of the bar.

“Twice in one day, wow.” She said.

Beca scanned the stranger up and down, not taking her eyes off of her. She was pretty. _Very_ pretty. “It’s a small town- I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Oh, we haven’t.” She said, chipper as ever. “My names Emily. And you’re Beca, Chloe has told me all about you.”

She raised her eyebrows, giving a slight tilt of the head towards Chloe. Her cheeks were red and Beca couldn’t’ tell if that had changed from before this topic of conversation was brought up. She hated the heat that licked at her own throat- she had no right, none whatsoever, to feel that surge of jealousy towards this tall stranger. They had forgotten each other. Forgotten the way they felt against each other. Forgotten how they loved, and how they hated. How they hurt.

“You did very well up there, Chloe.” Beca finally conceded. “Just like old times.”

“Sure,” Chloe’s eyes were hard, that signature blue not shining as it had before. Was it anger? Was it betrayal? Was it both? Beca couldn’t tell before Chloe looped her arm around Emily’s middle and lilted her head. “We have to be going. Have a good night, Beca.”

They walked past and Beca pretended not to get overwhelmed by the vanilla scent that both girls carried. Instead, she simply mumbled dejectedly. “You too, Chloe.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long time, no see. I have been seriously distracted with life lately, but I'm trying. Let me know what you guys think!

**Her skin prickled** against the air that the window unit created. It fought tirelessly against the propped open front door, the porch light pouring warm light into the hallway. It reflected off the hardwood with more subtly than the shifting waves of the lake paired with a crescent moon. Beca was drunk. She let her keys fall into the dish by the door with a little clank- and she stared at them for a moment.

When she was younger, she had a curfew. It was ten o’clock on school nights and eleven on weekends. Her mother would wait up with a book in hand and the curtains drawn. She would let the night air take over the house, the screen door not doing much against the elements. Beca would still try and sneak in, even if the hinges creaked more than the wrap around porch. Then her mother died, and she didn’t have to tip-toe anymore. Just like she didn’t have to now. 

“Beca? That you?”

Her father had changed out of his work clothes, though the oil was a permanent fixture under his nails. He looked tired, like the ghost of a man who had once had everything. Maybe that was the moon. Or maybe it was the fuzzy feeling that accompanied Beca, but it made her feel a deep ache. She felt bad for him. How she was the only one he had left.

“Yeah, it’s just me, dad.”

“I waited up for you… you didn’t call.”

She stared at him curiously. Even when she was a teenager, he hadn’t done that. After coming home from work he would shut himself away in his garage and work on yet another car. Her mom used to say it helped him think, but Beca always believed that it helped him be anywhere but here: Trapped in a southern domestic life with two kids and a wife that was dying.

Besides, Beca was an adult. A twenty-nine-year-old woman with a career and an apartment on the West Coast. He didn’t’ need to wait up for her, just like her roommate didn’t’ ever need to call her an Uber when she was out drinking late. She accepted both gestures as they were. 

“You’ve been drinking.”

Beca breathed out heavily, she could still taste the ghost of her whiskey sour on her lips. “Yeah.”

Beca turned her attention to the staircase, putting her right foot against it. Her palm was met with the initial shock of the cold railing.  She went for a second one when her father spoke. “Did you drive?”

A certain weight overturned in her stomach like she had swallowed something a little bigger than a marble. The glass was turning against her insides in a cold and unnatural way. The greasy slab of pizza that she had scarfed down after walking back into the bar was threatening to resurface. “ _What?_ ”

“Did you drive home tonight?”

“No, no, I heard you.” She swallowed, dropping her hand from the railing. Her father’s face was hard, and his eyes were dark. Maybe it was because he looked so sickly, but she was sure that wasn’t it. It was anger. Seething anger that seemed to be contagious. “I took a taxi. Why would you ask me that?” 

He kept his features smooth, but let out a labored sigh, finally frowning down at the hardwood floor. Beca could feel her nails digging into the railing. Whatever buzz she was carrying had tapered off. She could hear the deafening click of the hands on the clock hung beneath thoughtfully arranged family photos. Nice snapshots in time that made everything look so pristine.

“I don’t know, Bec.” He ran his hand over his freshly shaped hair. “It seems like the rational thing to ask. You’re my kid, I’m allowed to worry.”

“ _Not_ about that. You think I would get behind the wheel after that happened?” She asked, and his eyes snapped back to her with a flash of anger. They quickly softened. “I’m not some reckless teenager anymore. I’m not going to get plastered and then…”

Beca’s voice and thoughts wandered off. It wasn’t a teenager who had hit Jason, and she knew that. It was an older guy, sad and drowning his sorrows in a few whiskeys at the local bar. He taught himself how to drink and still stay within the lines. Fell asleep behind the wheel, maybe- but he had walked away with a few scratches and nothing more. Jason hadn’t walked away at all.  

“You really think I would do something like that? That I would endanger not only myself but everyone else on the road because of a stupid fucking choice?”

“Someone did!” He rose his voice, dropping his hand to the side “Someone got drunk and got behind the wheel of a vehicle before smashing it into Jason’s car and I lost him. He’s gone, and he’s never coming back. Not to me, not to you, not to his ex-wife. Because he can’t. He fucking can’t.” 

She swallowed thickly, fingers tightening around the banister. She stared at him for a moment and he stared right back. He looked like he had woken up in the middle of the night to grab a glass of water, but instead, he walked away with glassy eyes and a sullen face. “Goodnight, Dad.” 

“Goodnight, Beca.” 

 **She forgot how** painful a hangover could be. How her head would pound, and her mouth would feel deadened with a metallic edge. The AC unit continued to hum evenly and Beca let out a breathy sigh when she heard her father’s car start up in the driveway. The sun had barely begun to peak out, and part of her hated the fact that she was awake in the first place.

Beca reached blindly for the water bottle next to her bed but settled for her phone instead. She cringed away from the seemingly blinding light and pulled open her notifications. Facebook. She didn’t even know why she kept it on her phone. It was a place that linked her here.

Stacie had tagged her in a few different posts that she doesn’t remember posing for. If people in town didn’t’ know she was back before, they knew now. She was posing sloppily next to the older woman, her nose pressed against her cheek and a drunken smile on her face. Stacie captioned it: _Some things never change._

But a lot had.

She continued to scroll through the notifications before clicking on her memories. She found herself doing it every morning- looking at things she had posted on this day years before. Eleven years before. There were a few posts about school, mainly how she had just gotten her license and was looking for cars. But then there was Chloe.

A picture of the two of them leaning against the tree that was in her backyard. She could see the base of the carving. The sun peaked from behind the large oak, haloing Chloe’s natural red curls. Her eyes crinkled at the sides when she smiled, and her focus was solely on Beca. It made her stomach knot up.

Beca let out a sharp huff and clicked off her phone, staring up at the ceiling instead.

Everything about this town had plunged her into a world she worked so hard to forget. But burying the bad came with dismissing the good. And Chloe was everything good. Even after eleven years, Beca felt like this woman knew more about her than anyone.

She blinked away any sleep from her eyes and peeled the duvet back, sweat already wracking her body. She remembered the first time she saw her roommate going for a jog after a long night of drinking. They both had the same amount of liquor and Beca had curled up on the end of the couch while Aubrey resounded to taking a shot of ginger-infused juice and went for a run around the block. She was fine and Beca suffered. She thought it was an LA thing, but Aubrey pointedly told her that it was a human being thing.

So, she found herself jogging. Not because she was hungover, or the vague memory of what her father had said to her last night, just in general. Because it was something to distract her from the phone she left on her nightstand, and the sudden urge she had to go into the tool shed for an ax. Getting in a few blocks seemed like an easier option than sawing down a tree the size of her house.

Beca placed her headphones accordingly and began her journey along the sidewalks in her neighborhood. This place used to feel so big to her: the classic southern ranch homes that occupied families covering their own secrets while searching for others. They would sit on the porch and sip their sweet tea and wait for someone like her to run by. Following her with their eyes, the daring looking up from their books to offer a wave in exchange.

She could feel the back of her shirt cling to her skin, the spring heat eating away at her as her feet pounded against pollen dusted sidewalks. She expertly dodged couples walking their dogs, edging to the end of the third block she covered. Beca pulled her headphones out, placing her hands behind her head as she struggled to catch her breath in the heat.

Beca turned around Montgomery street, ignoring the pounding against the inside of her wrist. She followed the beat of the song until she made a right on Hope Avenue. Then another left against main street. The small town suddenly came into view and her mind dripped with the thoughts of the last time she had jogged this far.

It was freshmen year.

Nina Blanchard had cornered her in the girl’s locker room, backed into another locker that wasn’t her own. She considered that a small mercy among miracles. Nina had hit puberty over the summer, had grown in height among other things. Beca took a few blows to the stomach and one to the face before she grabbed her bags and made a run for it.

She had sprinted across town and all the way to Hope before struggling to drag one breath into her starving lungs. She was drenched with sweat and her cheek throbbed. The door was locked when she finally made it home and Beca had sunk to her knees in the backyard next to a big oak tree. One that swayed in the wind, making its long arms tap against her windowpane during dark storms.

Beca stopped next to the flower shop on the corner: the door was propped open with a bag of mulch and Goldenrods hung under the windows. The coffee shop next store gave off the scent of pastry and Beca fought back the nausea in her stomach. She placed her hands behind her head and tried to steady her breathing.

A businessman balanced his coffee while sandwiching his phone between his shoulder and ear. Two women sat at the outside table, casting a few sparing glances to a little girl that sat on the sidewalk. Her hair was a mess of blonde curls, her head downcast as she picked evenly at the grass poking up between the sidewalks. Beca couldn’t tell over her heavy breathing, but she looked like she was crying, tears dripping from her chin.

Beca wanted to leave, to begin her long jog home, but instead, she pulled her headphones from her ears and lowered herself to the curb- not completely next to the girl, but enough for her to pick up her head and give her a strange look. They sat in silence while Beca continued to catch her breath.

“Why are you sweating so much?” The girl finally asked, voice foggy.

“I went for a run.”

“You stink.” She wrinkled her nose and looked up all at once. Beca was a bit taken aback by the sheer blueness of her eyes. She felt a pain beneath her ribs and she wasn’t sure if that was the three miles, or if it had something to do with the familiarity of them.

“Yeah well, you’re the one crying on the curb, kid.”

She frowned for a moment and Beca continued to stare before the two of them burst into laughter. This kid couldn’t’ be more than ten, maybe eleven, but she couldn’t’ tell. Either way, it pained Beca to see her eyes rimmed in red and nose on the brink of running.

“Some kids at my school… they’ve been torturing me since we could walk. Nothing really helps, you know? So I try to ignore it but sometimes it’s too much.”

Beca nodded as she understood, and for once in her life, she did.

“My mom sent me to get some things from the store, and I was going to, really, I was. But they were blocking the way and I ran in the other direction because that’s easier than getting pushed to the ground again.” She dragged her arm against the base of her nose. “So now I’m here with this stupid list I was supposed to get an hour ago.”

“Let me see that,” Beca reached out her hand and the girl apprehensively gave over the folded-up piece of paper. The handwriting was looped in a mix of cursive and print. Beca had to bite back a scoff. It was nearly unreadable, but she could make up the word _eggs._  “Your mom write this?”

The girl hummed and took it back. She shoved it into her jean pocket and stared forward, blinking silently at the little crosswalk that had no one begging to cross it. “Sometimes people tear you down because they have nothing better to do. It’s easier for them to fight their envy against you than to face their own. You just can’t let it bother you, kid. Once you shut all of that out, life gets a lot easier.”

She shook her head, forcing a small smile. “Is that why you’re out here running?”

Beca laughed, finally letting her heart settle “Don’t be a smartass. Don’t you have a list to get?”  


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just potentially got a job in Wyoming, and I'm moving there in less than a month. I'm so ready for a change in the scenery because Southern Beach town is beyond too much right now. Anyway, let me know how you guys feel!

**Beca Mitchell rocked** back and forth on her trainers. They squeaked against the linoleum floor, but not enough for anyone but her to notice. This store made her nervous, had made her nervous since she ran into Chloe Beale here a day and a half ago. Besides that, the lights were too bright and unnatural, the scent of freshly procured produce clawed at her throat.

She held the basket like a good helper, even though she was the older one in this situation. The plastic felt uncomfortable against her grasp and she was trapped in the loaded loop of anxiety that came with accompanying a kid to a candy store. It looked suspicious, and she was still very much drenched in sweat from her three-mile jog into town.

Riley had wiped the tears from her cheeks and was now glaring openly at the list in front of her. She had mentally checked off more than one of the items, making the basket heavier. She looked paler under the fluorescents, her eyes a vibrant shade of blue.

“I think that’s everything. You know you didn’t’ have to stick around? I could have gotten this stuff by myself.”

“I don’t mind, really. Besides, I had to cool off a little.”

Both of these things were half-truths. Beca had enough buzzing energy to take off and run to the docks another two miles away, and then the five back. She was itching to get out of this grocery store. They passed the aisle with the rubber gloves and Clorox wipes and Beca blinked away from it.

While they walked Riley talked about anything to fill the silence: The way they switched to getting their food from big corporations now because it was cheaper, and how they were thinking about remolding the store to fit current times but Mr. Roberts didn’t have that much money to front and _why change something that was working in the first place._

Beca wondered that herself. She put the food that they had pilfered from the shelves on the conveyor belt and nodded along to the girl’s ramblings. Everything here had been a safety net, and some people are fine with making a hammock out of it- _why change it._ But she thought that was cowardice and would personally write a check for Mr. Roberts if he hadn’t caught her shoplifting spearmint gum when she was just past Riley’s age.

“Beca Mitchell?” The cashier’s jovial tone was enough to pull her over the edge. She was a stout woman that had the vague reality of being familiar, but not competently registering. She found herself flicking her eyes down to the obnoxiously lime green vest that had a tag pinned to it. Jenny. Emo Jenny from homeroom that almost burned down the school, or Band leader Jenny who could do the splits and deep throat anything in the name of school spirit? “Oh, my word, I heard you were back in town from a little birdy.”

Band Leader Jenny, it is.

“Yeah, not for pleasantries, I’m afraid.” Beca cupped her fingers behind her neck as Riley looked up at her with a squinted expression.

“Oh yes, you poor thing.” She clicked her tongue, or maybe sucked her teeth, Beca wasn’t sure. “When I heard about your brother, I said to myself, who thinks to do a thing like that? Who drinks and drives when there are plenty of other reckless things to do without harmin’ others?”

She had scanning things at a fast pace, placing them in paper bags like Tetris. Beca could feel her fingers reach for her wallet as she searched for her card, still making eye contact with a random girl she barely knew from high school.

“Anyway, how are you doing?” She finally interrupted, seeing as no one else was in the line for the chatty woman. She knew it would never end unless she changed the subject.

“Pretty good, sweetie, thank you! I married Chet and the two of us settled down right on the edges of town. We have three kids now, they're all one year apart and practically triplets if you can believe it. I swear they are joined at the hip- your total is 22.75- and they’re starting school soon. I’ll be glad to get them out of daycare, you know?”

“Oh, I can’t imagine.”

She plastered on a cheesy smile that made Riley snort and press her fingers against her lips. Beca could feel the corners of her mouth turn up into something more genuine as she grabbed the bags from Jenny and promised to catch up with her in a less public setting before she headed back off to that high-class life of hers.

Beca passed the bag to Riley and relished the hotness of the sun for once in her life. Her fingers felt numb and cold- apparently, everyone goes to the grocery store, because she couldn’t’ seem to avoid slaps in the face from her past. She had smiled as she did at the funeral. This seemed raw though. She started walking towards the direction that she came from.  

“You didn’t’ have to pay for that. My mom gave me thirty bucks.”

“Pocket it and don’t tell her, kid. Start saving up for something.”

“Like a bus ticket?”

Beca stopped in the middle of the sidewalk at that. She turned and stared at Riley, who was breaking a sweat trying to keep a handle on the paper bag that looked like it was about to bust through. She had a defiant look on her face and one eyebrow raised. “What?”

“I mean, that’s what you did, right? You got a bus ticket out of here as soon as you could.”

“No, no I didn’t.”

She was chained a full year after she had walked across the stage, and maybe that’s what hurt her the most. The fact that she didn’t’ hop on a Greyhound the second she finished the obliged diploma. Instead, she shut herself away in the clutches of her old ranch house. Her chest felt tight and her throat felt even tighter.

“What that woman said about your brother-“Riley spoke softly “What happened?”

Beca let out a soft breath and raked her hands through her sweat caked hair. This kid had no sense of boundaries, none at all. She had half the mind to steal the thirty off her and sprint back home for a long and numbing shower: instead, she squatted down, taking the bag from the girls’ hands. “He died. A car accident a month ago.”

Riley blinked a few times and stared her down, scouring her features.

“Aren’t you going to say it?”

“Say what? That I’m sorry?”

Beca nodded dumbly. She had seen her fair share of head tilts and the way there was an instant glazed softness to people’s eyes. The way they thought about their own brother, their own sister or parent succumbing to an accident- a freak accident set into motion by bad choices. But Beca didn’t’ see that in Riley.

“I’m not going to say it. I don’t’ think you need to hear it again” She said, taking the bag back in her hands “Thanks for the groceries.”  

 **She watched the** key that shook in her grasp. The vibrant oranges and earth-shattering yellows of the fallen sunset reflected off the windows like a forgotten blaze left to burn in the hills of a forest. The lawn had grown darkened and brown, the paper that Beca had yet to cancel continued to stack up in front of the door like a barricade of daily news.

Beca had placed her hand against the red painted wood and felt the head the morning sun had left behind. There was a chill picking up in the air, her hair still wet and thrown into a loose bun on the top of her head. She had been avoiding this for most of the day, waiting until the end of the day to pull herself back out of bed.

She clenched her jaw and watched.

Jason wanted to get a dog after his wife left him, but he never had. He would busy himself with projects. Ripping up the carpet in the house and replacing it with wood in fear that the dog would ruin the fabric. Putting up a white picket fence because an animal with that much energy needs to have space to run freely. Searching through links on Facebook and visiting the pound every other day. He used to tell Beca that nothing truly clicked. He never felt that special connection he was craving and Beca didn’t’ think he would, not with an animal.

“Are you going to go in or not?”

“I went in the first time.”

Beca stilled her gaze on the old woman. Her features were shaded by the sunset. She looked younger somehow, leaning over the white picket fence with her hands grasping the wood as hard as she could. Her eyes shined like a dark forested day. Greener without that large hat of hers. She felt more daring when garden sheers weren’t waved in her view.

“Not for long.”

“Don’t you… I mean why is this a thing for you?” She pivoted on her sneaker for a moment, slinging her arms against her chest. “To prod and poke until you get the answers that you want?”

She edged her mouth into a thin line, lilting her head to the side in the same exact way Jenny from the Stop and Shop had earlier. This time it was more condescending and Beca didn’t care much for the fact that she didn’t’ have a garden tool as a weapon anymore, she still terrified her. Beca continued to stand her ground.

“Jason would come to mow my lawn, has been for the past four years. I would make his lemonade too sweet and he would tell me all about his family. His wife. You, his sister, I presume.”

Beca didn’t’ notice how unruly the lawn looked aside for the pristine bushes of red budded flowers and sharp thorns. The grass was growing too high, almost reaching past the woman’s ankles. Still- it was green and thriving compared to the patchy grass of her brothers spotted land.

“People are probably doing the most to step around you right now.” She continued. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve spoken to him more than you have in the past years. That I’ve been a constant presence and you’ve been…”

“Gone.” Beca ran her thumb over the edge of the house key that was warm like putty in her grasp.

“Not gone,” She took a step away from the fence. “Just absent. He missed you.”

“I uh-“Beca blinked away from the woman with a jungle for a lawn. “I have to go inside. Clean this place up.”

“Okay,” She nodded, the corner of her mouth turning up in a slight smile. “Okay.”

Beca turned her attention back to the door. Back to something she didn’t want to push open again. She waited until she heard the creaking of the screen to her right. She could hear the crickets that chirped against the surrounding forest and the way the air got heavy with moisture as clouds filled the sky. She could sense the electricity, stare evenly at the red paint.

Beca took a step back and pocketed the key. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a bit since I posted for this story... and I know that no one is really going to read this (trust me, If it were me I would skip right to the story too) But I just have to say. I did probably one of the scariest things I've ever done about two months ago. Which was move across the country with only 400 dollars in my bank account and a fuck ton of hope. Long story short- now I actually DO live in a small town like this one and it's uhh culture shock. So that explains away the shitty chapter and the fact that I've been so spotty with updates. Enjoy!

**Her fingers ran against** the edge of the bark. Its surface was old and withered, the scent of premature rot pressing against the back of her throat like a blade with a sharpened edge. If she were daring enough to swallow it would cut into soft skin and draw the faintest color of blood. Vibrant against the rest of the fenced in back yard.

Sweat soaked into Beca’s shirt, wicked in a pattern with dirt. She was panting, the summer heat cloying as she struggled to run the paintbrush evenly to the wood- a distraction, she thought. Fixing up the back yard in exchange from the house that loomed across the bridge next to the old woman with the growing weeds. Her father wouldn’t mind the extra work. And she certainly couldn’t’ fault herself for keeping busy.

Beca had mowed the lawn, taken away the brush that had been overgrowing in the light of the day. Her father, he had forgotten most things. To mow the lawn, to drink water, to put gas in his car and pay the electric bill. Her heart ached for him these last few weeks. Painting the fence was the least she could do- even if it was a deep pasty white that reflected the sun. speakers blaring a soft rock in response to nature.

She was halfway through the perimeter when a slight knock pulled her away from dragging the brush evenly down the wood. Beca drew in a hot breath and turned towards the break in the fence. A falling archway made of thin white material stood in all its glory- like a gateway to a mystical garden that had fallen slave to an evil ice queen with freezing powers. Under that, stood a young girl.

Blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and a dark crystal stare lit up at the sight of Beca. She wore overalls and a striped shirt; her fingers grasped a plain white paper bag that was crinkled from the ride over here on a bike- Beca was guessing. Riley, beaming in all her glory. Beca let out a breath and couldn’t’ help the smile that formed against her lips.

“I brought you some lunch, or you know, breakfast,” Riley said as she walked across the expanse of the yard. Beca rose to her feet, feeling the exhaustion from the early morning rise. Her clothes were speckled in paint and dirt and she couldn’t help the way her stomach clenched the second she got a whiff of pastry. “To thank you for yesterday… the groceries.”

She took the bag gratefully “How’d you find me, kid?”

“Small town, remember? What are you doing anyway? It’s like a thousand degree’s out here.”

Beca shrugged and reached for the food. A small apple fritter that was coated in a warm icing, even after the long ride over here. She couldn’t help the moan that escaped her mouth as soon as she took a bite. Her taste buds squirmed as she breathed in the soft cinnamon smell. Riley beamed and let out a scoff. “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

She decided to shove the rest into the bag for a snack later before she rubbed her hands on her already spotted pants. “I’m fixing up the backyard, making it look less like a war zone.”

“Humph, I’ve seen worse.” Riley wondered aloud. “Mind if I help? Last summer I painted houses with my aunt for my allowance.”

The older girl rose a brow and looked around. She had been at this for hours and had only gotten halfway across the yard. Guns and Roses started to blast from the speakers under the large oak tree and her newfound resilience to sitting still was starting to waver. So she nodded towards a brush and knelt back down in front of her own plank of wood, Riley starting from the top of the one on her right. They painted in silence for a few moments.

“Jenny said you were from Los Angeles.” Riley finally said, dragging the bristles across the length of the wood, sloppy white paint dripped but she was agile enough to catch it before it hit the grass. Beca frowned. When did the band leader have time to say that? “What’s it like?”

Beca glanced over. “Why, you planning on making that the destination of your bus ticket?”

“I _never_ said anything about a bus ticket. You did. I’m just curious is all. I’ve only ever seen here, you know. Small town charm and all. You’re a stranger. At least to me.”

“You mean a trespasser.”

“Either way, you’ve seen more of the world than I have. So, tell me, what’s LA like? I bet you see celebrities every single day.”

Beca smiled and laughed. She thought that’s what it would be at first too. At the supermarket, or at the gym. But instead, she rolled into town with four dollars in her pocket and a studio apartment that had a futon and one light that barely lit the tiny space. The walls were cracked and laden with mold- but it was home, and she didn’t happen upon any famous faces.

“Not every day,” She settled on her words, dipping the brush in the paint again. “I did see that girl who’s in all those Lifetime movies during Christmas at a stoplight one day. But honestly, I was more interested in her dog.”

Riley laughed with a nod and they fell into a rhythmic silence for a few more minutes before the young girl found her footing once more. “Was it hard?... to leave here?”

She sat back on her heels and stared at her paint-covered hands for a moment. The white was speckled across slowly reddening skin. Beca frowned and Riley stopped painting altogether, her eyebrows lifted in the pursuit of an answer.

“This town is kind of like a snow globe. You’ve seen one of those before, right? It’s gorgeous and small, and there’s just the right amount of glass to keep you protected from the outside world.” She glanced up, staring at the girl. “But breaking out… it’s almost unheard of. Like you’re betraying the people who are daring enough to shake it up and make it snow. Does that make sense?”

Riley crinkled her nose in familiarity, her freckles defined in the sun as she shook her head. “No,”

Beca gave her a sad smile and a sigh “When I moved, there was one thing left for me here. And back then, I didn’t think it was enough but now… I think it was the only thing that I’ve ever needed. And now that I broke that glass, I don’t think it can ever really snow again.”

 **The soapy water** washed over soft skin, a thick scent of lavender and mint toying with her lungs as she sunk her aching body into the tub. The porcelain was frigid, and she flinched against the way it clung to her skin. She hissed but eventually settled against the water.  Her toes barely touching the far edge.

_“This tub is perfect! And so is the backyard, oh my god! Do you see that view”_

Beca could almost hear her mothers voice. It was happy then, barely cracking under the pressures of the world. Her father still had most of his hair and Jason was dashing around the same backyard that she was renovating now- his shoes pulling in mud but none of them really cared. It was one of her earliest memories-

The way her mother balanced her on her hip while she held her stuffed bunny close by the neck. The woman, the beautiful soul that she remembered as her mother, leaned down then- she set her on the floor by the white paneling of the bathroom. The realtor tapping her foot impatiently as they studied the popcorn ceiling and the wrap around porch.

“Don’t worry little one,” She beamed that classic smile “One day you’ll be tall enough for us to mark on this wall right here-“ She stretched her hand all the way up “You’re going to grow up here, would you like that?”

Beca did like it- for the most part. Her parents moving away from the big city so her mother could work at home and her father could open his own business. It was the tub, the tub that sold it and the faint pencil markings that kept them here all this time.

Goosebumps rose against pale skin as she reached blindly for the towel that rested by golden carved legs. She wrapped it warmly against her mid-section before stepping carefully from the tub and over to the wall. Her mother kept adamant on her promise.

Beca let out an even sigh and ran her fingertips over the heights written in her mothers’ script… Jason was always taller. He’d purposely put things on higher shelves- but Beca was crafty back then, they both were. Devising plans to see what Santa had brought. To get the fruit snacks on the top shelf.

“I’m sorry,” She whispered, drawing her hand back as she turned away from the writing. “I’m sorry.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry guys... You wanted More Chloe so I delivered, it's only going to get more angsty from here. But let me know what you think, your comments really do keep me going!

**The house towered** above her as the shadow stretched longingly against the sidewalk that proceeded a white picket fence and a now overgrown lawn. She stilled herself with her shoulders square and her chest quivering. It was a house, just a house. There was nothing behind that door that could wound her other than memories, but somehow, she begged more for any demons with pointed teeth and forked tongues.

At least she made it past the fence today, she reasoned. She had made it up to the curb the day before and now she was just resting halfway up the walk. It escaped her why she could enter the other week, how she brought herself to unlock the door and break the threshold when her palms sweat uncontrollably at the thought now.

“Can you do me a favor?” The woman across the fence pulled her from her thoughts as she slowly flicked her eyes towards the stranger who pushed her further each day. “I need someone to run to the café on 5th for me. I can peaches and they’re counting on them today, just got a call from the owner.”

Beca walked through overgrown grass to rest her hands on the fence where the woman stood with her large floppy hat and gardening gloves. Of course, she canned peaches. It matched her small-town dominance. There was a red truck parked in the drive, dusty and dark. She focused on that.

“Your truck doesn’t’ work?”

“Another thing your brother was tinkering with in his spare time.” She waved her gloved hand around and fretted “Besides, I can’t move like I used to. Will you do it?”

Beca agreed, she couldn’t very well deny her. It was a hot day and the air clung to her very being as she felt the weight lift off her shoulders when she crossed from her brothers' yard to the woman’s. She wasn’t expecting a welcome invitation but she followed her into the cottage without protest.

It was a quaint little house, smelling of her grandmother's attic and then freshly chopped peaches the further they wandered into the kitchen. The walls were a bright yellow, but nothing to overpower the senses. Sunflowers decorated almost every surface and a pile of mail sat on the kitchen table. The fridge was littered with cards sent from grandchildren, children, or both.

Beca ran her finger over the wedding invitation closest to the far right corner. It was a picture of her brother and a beautiful blonde woman with darkened green eyes. Below, in cursive, was a save the date. They both looked so happy, so at ease. She had only seen them together like that once and it was on the very date mentioned in the card.

“I don’t know why I keep that up there.” The woman said. “A tendency to never throw anything away.”

The younger girl hummed and turned away from the icebox, a crate of peaches suddenly being thrust into her grasp. It was weighted and her arms immediately felt the burn of it’s stacked net worth. She grunted in comparison. “Which Café is it?”

“Ivory Eden. Go through the back door.” She responded with ease. “They’re expecting you.”

 **It was settled** on the end of a row of shops and offices that Beca remembered as a child. The exterior was stone and the signs all hung from wrought iron rods. She snorted as she passed the dentist where she had gotten her wisdom teeth out- grasping drugged and desperate at the candy they ironically kept at the front.

She had been in a lot of pain the following weeks, but her mother wrapped her in their softest blankets and placed her little nest at the end of the sofa. They watched cheesy daytime television as she drifted in and out of sleep, only stirred when she had to force down medicine, or that one time when Chloe showed up with banana smoothies from the local diner.

Beca shook the memory from her head as she pulled her truck into the alleyway beside the carved sign for the Ivory Eden. There was a little patio occupied by a couple pursuing a paper- she took the sports section, sipping on a latte while he read through the comics, munching on a bagel bare of cream cheese.

She took a deep breath and exited her car. There was a small screen door that leads to the kitchen. She could almost feel the heat pouring out, hear the sounds of a sink running and an oven humming. The scent of honey and basil filled her lungs before she even got a chance to pull it open with a loud creak. It would do better than a muffled knock, she thought.

The kitchen was smaller than she assumed, but it made sense for a tiny café. There was one silver table in the middle of the room, coated in a light dusting of flour. Different equipment like an oven and a cooler lined the walls, directly across from her was a window cut out with two tickets pinned and waving against the draft.

More importantly, there was a woman. She was tall and covered in a light dusting as well, her black t-shirt looked chalky and her hands were kneading a big ball of dough the best she could. Her tongue peeked out of the corner of her mouth in a bout of focus. Beca lilted her head, she looked familiar, dark brown hair falling from a messy bun.

“Oh!” She glanced up at the sound of the door, wiping her hands hastily against her jeans “Shoot, I didn’t hear you come in. You’re… Miss Eastmont usually sends someone else.”

“I think she ran out of options.” Beca scratched the back of her neck, knitting her brows “We haven’t met before have we?”

The stranger let out a small laugh that was followed by a nervous snort. She was endearing if not messy. Lanky if anything. She walked from behind the large table. “We have actually, once, at The Snake Eye.”

Beca wracked her brain. She remembers Stacie and seeing Chloe up against those bright blue lights that shaded her face. Those jeans, and the way she went right back inside after the cold shoulder she had been presented with right outside those doors. Chloe was with that girl... and, right “Emily?”

“Ah, so your memory isn’t all that shot.” She smiled wider “I think you have something for me? Can’t very well make peach cobbler without peaches… then it would just be granola and a boatload of cinnamon.”

Beca nodded and lead the way back to her car. The mason jars rattled as she handed the first palette of peaches to Emily, taking the other in her hands with strength. They had propped the door open with a cinderblock, and Beca found herself reveling in something so simple. A small café getting a local delivery from the old woman in a suburb.

She followed Emily’s directions and left them on the counter next to an industrial-sized sink. Flexing her fingers when they were free of the weight. “How often does she do this?”

“A couple of times a month-“Emily placed her hands against the nave of her back “The woman may not be as agile as she used to be, but she sure can grow good produce in that backyard of hers. She’s been like that for as long as I can remember.” She blew a strand of hair from her eyes “When I was a kid people were convinced she was an evil witch with magic powers.”

“Why would an evil witch waste all of her effort on growing peaches?”

Emily shrugged “We were nine, our logic had some pretty big holes in it.”

A bell rang. Something like the ones people kept on the front desk at a hotel to get the attention of the clerk. This time it was accompanied by someone reading off a list of terms Beca had only heard in old movies about diners and people who slaved over pies. Fire-filled hair made Beca’s chest seize and her palms wetten.

“You know how Mr. Anderson likes his Eggs, Emily-“ Chloe Beale looked up from the ticket she was holding, stalling for a moment, just a moment. “Oh, Hi-“

“Beca was just dropping off the peaches that Miss Eastmont had for us this week.” Emily scrambled, looking between the two women. “I will get right on those eggs if you’ll excuse me.”

Chloe held that crystal blue stare with Beca for an impossibly long time, all while Beca tried not to notice. Tried impossibly hard not to care about how beautiful she looked in the early morning light. She wore a button-down with the Ivory Eden embroidered against the right breast, ringlets of hair falling over her shoulders as she clenched her jaw and lifted her chin. The sizzle of eggs against a hot pan filled the room.

“I uh, didn’t know you ran this place,” Beca said.

“I do,” Chloe replied, drawing in a breath.

“Beca-“ Emily said as she slid the cooked eggs onto the plate, steaming in the cold air. “You should stay for some breakfast, maybe try a serving of the peach cobbler.”

Chloe sent a glare the cook's way as she placed the plate in the window next to her. The ticket creased in her grasp as Emily lilted her head, eyebrow raised. She knew exactly what she was doing and it was stirring Chloe up, making a heat rise in Beca as she let out an apprehensive noise.

“I should really get going.”

“No, please, we insist.” Chloe drew in a careful breath, grasping the plate of runny eggs “It’s on the house.”    


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is... ouch. But thank you guys for all the feedback I appreciate it and read every single comment, they mean a lot to me!

**Beca let out** a long moan of satisfaction, the sound filled the air as it pushed past her lips. That satisfaction was quickly filled with shock, and then embarrassment. She covered her mouth and set the fork down on the side of the plate. Hoping no one had heard her, but of course, lady luck wasn’t on her side.

Chloe held a coffee pot, near mid-pour, as she stood behind the counter. A white mug was in her other hand and her own lips were parted as she stared at her customer. Emily had a shit-eating grin on her face as she leaned against the kitchens window, clearly satisfied with herself.

Beca cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, but those are the best damn eggs I’ve ever had.”

“Only reason we keep her around.” Chloe snipped, shaking away her astonished distraction as she resumed pouring black coffee. “That and she can reach all the spots I can’t dust.”

Beca nodded and thanked her for the drink. She was being careful- this was the most Chloe had spoken to her in the twelve years since they had parted. She had left voicemails that Beca clung onto until her phone had fallen into a pool three years into her career change. At first, it had everything to do with getting over the scars that she had left behind, and then it turned into a pure yearning to hear her voice.

And boy had Beca heard it since she arrived back in the quaint little town. Of course, it was filled with malice that cut her deep, but anything was better than nothing. Nine years of absolutely nothing but clicking on her profiles and only getting a glimpse at her wedding photo. Only to be changed to a selfie a couple of years later. It was proper southern manners never to ask about divorce. Never to get divorced in the first place.

“Thank you,” She said, “For breakfast, I mean. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know I didn’t. Don’t read too much into it.”

Beca had already read too much into it. Had written the novel, revised it, and thrown the whole thing out. She decided that this was nothing but a formality. If the chef in the back hadn’t mentioned their tradition of payment in the first place, she would be sitting in her hot car in her brother’s driveway. But instead, she felt her legs go numb the more Chloe spoke.

When they were younger, she had talked about opening a restaurant in town and Beca had always thought it was small thinking. Thought that Chloe could go anywhere with the way she made a grilled cheese. Part of Beca regretted telling her that, dismissing her path of thinking. She hadn’t earned the right to be proud of Chloe for what she had created.

But even still, she sat with a half-finished breakfast in front of her in _Chloe’s_ café. Something she had worked so hard for and had made into a reality. It was just as impressive as the golden records on Beca’s walls back in LA. She had cultivated it herself.

“I do this for almost everyone, okay?” Chloe said, glancing back at the window. Emily had finally moved onto cutting up the peaches that Beca had delivered. “I’m doing this because you dropped off that fruit. Not out of common courtesy.”

Beca sat back in her chair and raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t expected Chloe to be so blunt about it, she had been polite during their last few encounters, if not uptight in her words. It was no secret that she harbored a strong hatred towards her. And it must have been hard, really, to allow her to sit there much less eat a meal without payment. She white-knuckled the coffee pot.

“I hear you loud and clear.” She said, grasping her mug and gulping down the molten liquid. Chloe huffed and started to walk away. “I do have one question, though.”

Chloe drew in a careful breath but eventually turned back to the woman who sat at her counter. Beca could see the annoyance in her stare, in those dastardly blue eyes that seemed to stare right through her. She couldn’t read them, but then again, she never could. Beca tapped her fingers against the counter.

“Why didn’t you come?” She asked.

“What?”

“To the funeral.” Beca adjusted her position in the leather chair. She glanced to make sure Emily wasn’t snooping. She wasn’t. “Part of me was prepared to see you before I even got on the plane… I thought I would walk into the church and you would be there. But you weren’t. Is your hatred for me strong enough to forget Jason?”

Chloe stared at her for a while. It seemed like centuries, her jaw clenched and her breath shallow. Beca despised the fact that she couldn’t’ break eye contact if the fear of losing Chloe in this one moment would vanish if their link was broken. Like a fairy that was struggling to stay hidden but got caught in the act with pixie dust flowing.

Beca swallowed the lump in her throat. “He taught you how to drive. Ironic, isn’t it?”

Even she knew that sounded bitter. But she needed Chloe to speak, to answer the question that was hanging in the air like a noose around an oak.

“The funeral was for family.” She finally said. “And we haven’t been that in a long time, Beca Mitchell.”

 **She threw her** keys on the table that rested right next to the front door. Pictures of them as a family had been turned towards the wood with their stands sticking up like a flag of surrender. She hadn’t paid much mind to them- it was just something her mother did up until the day she died. Replacing their school portraits each year. She was eternally a child.

There was one more photo between hers and Jason’s, also flipped to face the wood. A family photo that her mother had insisted on them all taking in the Macy’s portrait section. She was forced to wear a blazing red dress with a white collar that had green holly stitched into the side. Jason wore a red tie to match the dress and so did her father.- and damned if her mother didn’t look harmoniously out of place in her crushed velvet green gown.

The picture hung in the family room and took perch right here on the table. Beca ran her fingers over the metal gold frame as she stared at the light in her mother’s eyes. The dazzling smile of her brother. Even the tight one her father possessed. For the longest time, it was a simple photo done in a department store- but now she wanted to hold it close to her chest and sit in that stupid ivory tub that made her family buy the house in the first place.

“Beca, that you?” her father's voice called out from the kitchen. She had to reserve the sarcastic response as she set the frame back on the table, just the way he had situated it. The setting sun made the kitchen look orange, light leaking into the hallway as she crept towards him.

He would sit at the little table under the window and eat dry cereal while flipping though the headlines of a day almost concluding. This time, though, he wasn’t alone. Instead, Riley with the crystal eyes sat opposite him. There were frosty glasses of lemonade and playing cards between them. She smiled her toothy grin and waved. She lifted her chin in acknowledgment.

“Your friend here was sitting on our porch when I got home. I figured you wouldn’t be long so we played a few games of blackjack.”

“You taught a child about gambling?” Beca raised her eyebrows. 

“No,” he fretted, leaning back in his chair “She’s aptly kicking my ass at blackjack. I reckon I didn’t teach her anything.”

Riley looked proud of herself and Beca couldn’t help but smile at the pair. She hadn’t seen her father like this in a long while. The sadness, it was still there behind his stare, but it seemed a lot deeper. His fingers were staining the cards in grease, and he even left a mark on the crystal glass. But Riley didn’t seem to mind and neither did he.

“Oh really?” Beca asked, setting her bag down on the floor. She could feel the ache from carrying the cases of fruit earlier, but she ignored it. Pulling out the chair on one side of the table. “I am a pro at this, kid. Used to beat him all the time.”

“Is that true?” Riley asked her father in a hushed voice.

He lowered his as well, holding his hand up against his lips. “No, I let her win.”

“Oh come on!” Beca threw her hands up in the air with a smile. “Deal me in, Old Man.”


End file.
